Making Peace
by Amielleon
Summary: Henry meets Owain in The Future Past under different circumstances.


General warning: There is some potentially disturbing stuff here. If you're not at your best, you might not want to read this right now.

* * *

Cold rain assailed him from every direction as the storm blew violently across the wasteland. Henry could hardly see anything more than the shadowy silhouettes of trees around him as he shielded his eyes with one hand, clutching his tome with the other. Robin had told him to go on ahead and protect the children while the bulk of the army engaged the enemy general in the woods, but he hadn't seen anything but trees and Risen so far. He was starting to think that he had managed to get lost following the edge of a ravine.

Wandering soaked and freezing with no feeling left in his legs—he couldn't tell if it was from the rain beating down or the chill—Henry let himself think again that taking on this battle in the first place was kind of silly. There were probably millions of timelines out there where he and Lissa got married and had Owain before dying horribly. When he thought about it, none of this seemed to make much of a difference.

If only Naga hadn't gone and shown them Owain trying to get himself killed. That moment drove itself into him and stayed there right like a nail through his head.

Past the sting of rain against his face, Henry noticed something jutting out of the ground near the edge of the ravine—a stake with cut ropes dangling in the wind. Here was the bridge, at least. Where were those kids?

Right then, he heard a faint muted wail in the wind—definitely animal, not the empty howling of air. Was it them? He followed the sound, past the litter of weapons on the ground that dissipating Risen left behind.

A silhouette he had mistaken for debris moved and gave another cry, drowned and distant in the rain.

There were two people. One was on the ground. The other rocked, keening, above him. Even though he could barely see their outlines, Henry knew right away—who knew whether it was optimism or fatherly instinct—that the one who still had life in him was Owain.

The one laying on the ground, a spear skewered down into the side of his ribs, was Inigo.

Henry was almost close enough to touch Owain's shoulder when Owain jolted back, finally noticing him. "Father!?" he said in a high-pitched voice, water dripping from his chin.

"Hi," Henry said. It wasn't like there was anything better he could say, under the circumstances.

Owain rubbed a hand over his face—looked down at Inigo whose blood rinsed away from around the spear shaft as he strained to breathe—looked back up at Henry and seemed to register that he was wet and corporeal.

"I can help," Henry said, bringing dark magic to his hand as he knelt by the dying boy's side. He reached for Inigo's forehead, but Owain shoved his arm away.

"No," Owain said with a cracking voice.

"No?" Henry repeated. "But he's in a lot of pain and he's not going to make it."

"No, no," Owain repeated incoherently, jittery from cold and tension, so quiet it was hard to hear him over the rain. "Do you, do you have a—a vulnerary?"

Henry produced a pot from his satchel and said, "Here," and let Owain seize it from his fingers. It wouldn't do any good, he thought, but he couldn't say it.

Owain trembled and knelt by his friend, this boy who had sworn to die with him but died for him instead, and uncapped the vulnerary. He sat there, chattering while the rain washed the vulnerary down the sides of its pot, onto the ground where barely-pink water pooled, all of Inigo's blood amounting to the faintest tint, his skin rinsed clean of life. He sat there, staring down into the vulnerary like he didn't know what to do with it and that realization had stopped his mind in its tracks and now he had no idea what he was doing at all.

Henry searched for something he could say and offered, "Brady and Yarne made it to Ylisse."

Owain's shoulders jerked and he shook his head. Henry supposed it was the wrong thing to say.

The cold was starting to get to him. He sat down across from Owain, on the other side of Inigo, put his tome against his chest for insulation, and hugged his knees close. Between them, the spear quivered in the air. It was probably from the wind, but Henry couldn't get the thought out of his mind that it was from Inigo's ribs grating against it as he breathed. He wished Owain would let him put Inigo to rest.

Owain had crumpled to his knees, one arm arm around his middle, his other hand on Inigo's. The vulnerary was forgotten at his side. Henry watched him stay still like that, losing heat, wondering how much longer the army was going to take and what Naga would do after the Risen were gone. He had a feeling that if Naga took him away from this spot, Risen or no Risen, Owain might not make it after all.

"Father," he heard Owain say at last, "you should go."

Henry hummed as if he were considering it.

"Why are you even here?" he croaked. "Just—just, leave me alone."

In his own world, another Owain had told him that another Henry had died protecting him. Henry supposed that he and Inigo's broken body made for a horrible pair of sights.

But he had a feeling that as long as he was watching him, Owain couldn't throw his life away.

So he sat there, and watched, and said, "I know what you're doing, Owain."

Owain looked up at him past the pale hair plastered miserably to his forehead and the water following the hollows of his gaunt face and said, "Just go."

"No," Henry said simply. He had planned to leave it at that, but Owain stared at him so desperately that he felt he must explain. "I don't want you to die."

Owain couldn't meet his eyes then. He gazed down at Inigo's corpse (Was he gone now? It was hard to say.) and was silent.

The rain fell. The trees contorted in the wind. Henry sat with Owain, and thought to himself that he was being unfair to his son. Henry would've given his life for Owain or Lissa and it wasn't so long ago that he would've given his life up for nothing at all.

Watching Owain right now, he was having one that eerie feeling he had sometimes with Owain—all the people in the world he had ever known before were so completely different from him, and yet sometimes Owain (who was in some sense a stranger to him) would give a laugh that sounded exactly like his, or rub his nose in the exact same way.

Or charge into battle like he was trying to die.

Henry stared down at the dead boy before him. No one had ever tried to protect him like Inigo had risked himself for Owain. But if someone had, and they had died like this, well—he couldn't blame Owain for anything. Not for an instant.

Owain said haltingly, "What about you?"

There was one of those uncanny moments again. Henry kept a smile plastered on his face as he said, "Hm?"

"You—you died," he ground out with weak anger through chattering teeth. "Inigo died. For me. You both tell me not to die and then you—you—look!"

Owain limply lifted Inigo's hand in his before letting both fall back into the water. Henry guessed that he was crying—his face was contorted in pain.

Henry honestly had no idea what to do.

"You shouldn't've saved me," Owain croaked.

"I wanted to."

(Henry said, answering for both his selves.)

Owain only shook his head.

"I guess I'm just selfish," Henry said, resting his cheek on his knees. He watched Owain cry.

For an hour until the rain stopped, the three of them were as quiet as the dead boy. There were many things they could have said. Not trusting himself to say any of them, Henry simply watched Owain, knowing it was enough to keep him alive.

Naga did not take him back until Owain rose to his feet and walked, sleeplike, in the direction of Ylisse.


End file.
